Nigeria has been included in JPMorgan’s new frontier-market local-currency government bond index, with the country assigned a 7.4 per cent weighting, marking a significant return to a major global bond benchmark nearly 11 years after it was removed from the bank’s broader emerging-market index.

The new benchmark, known as the Government Bond Index–Emerging Markets Edge (GBI-EM Edge), is expected to be launched by the end of September 2026 and will track about $330 billion worth of local-currency government debt across 26 frontier economies.

Nigeria is expected to be one of the largest constituents of the index, alongside Egypt, Vietnam, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

JPMorgan has capped the weighting of any individual country in the index at eight per cent, meaning Nigeria’s 7.4 per cent allocation places it close to the maximum allowed exposure.

The development comes nearly 11 years after Nigeria was removed from JPMorgan’s Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets, GBI-EM, in 2015.

Nigeria’s inclusion in the new benchmark could increase the visibility of Federal Government naira-denominated securities among international fixed-income investors and fund managers who use JPMorgan indices as references for allocating capital across emerging and frontier markets.

JPMorgan has reportedly been developing the new index for several years amid rising investor interest in the relatively high yields available on government debt issued by frontier economies.

Under the proposed eligibility criteria, the benchmark is expected to include government bonds with a minimum equivalent outstanding value of $250 million and at least 2.5 years remaining to maturity.

African countries are expected to account for almost 45 per cent of the index, giving the continent a substantial presence in the benchmark, while frontier Asian economies are projected to represent nearly one-third.

The new index is also expected to offer significantly higher yields than JPMorgan’s mainstream emerging-market local-currency bond benchmark.

Its average nominal yield is projected at about 10.4 per cent, approximately 440 basis points, or 4.4 percentage points, higher than the yield on JPMorgan’s broader emerging-market local-currency index.

Historical back-testing cited in reports also indicated that the new frontier-market index would have generated returns about 1.2 percentage points higher than the mainstream emerging-market local-currency index since the end of 2017.

Bond indices such as JPMorgan’s are closely monitored by international asset managers because many investment funds either track them directly or use their country weightings as benchmarks when deciding how much capital to allocate to individual markets.

Consequently, Nigeria’s 7.4 per cent weighting could potentially increase international investor attention on the country’s domestic bond market, although actual capital inflows would still depend on factors including yields, exchange-rate stability, market liquidity, inflation and broader investor confidence.

The development follows months of engagement between the Federal Government and JPMorgan over Nigeria’s potential return to a major bond benchmark.

Earlier in 2026, the government disclosed that it was in discussions with the global financial institution over Nigeria’s admission into its government bond indices for emerging markets.

Nigeria’s inclusion in the GBI-EM Edge now places the country among the major markets in JPMorgan’s new frontier-debt benchmark and represents its first significant return to the bank’s local-currency sovereign bond index framework since its 2015 removal.

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